Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
When is it too late to begin reflecting upon one’s circumstances and choices? Do we already do that daily, and does the length of rumination engaged depend upon where one’s station in life has reached? Do old men and squeaky rocking chairs justify such reflective modes of behavior, or do the young as well take the time to ponder upon choices made, circumstances encountered, and the spectrum of clashes in between? […]
What is it about the ascription of such a word, that there can be a direct correlation or, if taken in a different context, some mere connection but no causality? We can say of a person, “He is responsible for X”, and yet never have directly encountered X or (if a person) never even have met X. Thus of monsters and thugs throughout history, for instance, we might say that “Stalin was responsible for 20 million deaths, […]
What is the difference between reality, fantasy, dreams, nightmares and pure hallucinatory visions not otherwise categorized? At times, we engage in the madness of asking such questions, all the while forgetting that the very reason why we are capable of making such a query is precisely because we already know the distinctions that divide the differences. […]
What does it mean to “persuade”? Is it an outcome-based event? Can one be “persuasive”, yet never persuade anyone to act upon a commitment made, perhaps verbally or with a nod of the head? What of a person who everyone agrees makes the most persuasive arguments, turns everyone’s heads with accolades of “wow” and “boy!”, yet no one can find a single person who has been persuaded to change one’s mind or follow? How about in battle – of that skinny little runt of a captain who nervously spoke, but who charged the troops up with great words and ideas […]
We all abide by them, strive to meet them and toil to achieve them. We claim that we control “it”, but in fact, it often becomes the monster which completely constrains and restrains, overpowers and undermines. Maintaining a schedule in life is important. Some, because of unknown past issues or current difficulties, cannot stand by and allow for a violation of it; others, with more daring personalities and flighty egos, defy it deliberately and result in floundering about without a purposive intent or constructive content. […]
The trailing ellipsis establishes a pause for reflection, and the finality of three periods for an emphasis upon the irreversible nature of the statement. “And then” connotes that something preceded – a lifetime of activities, a century or less of human historicity involving birth, growth, work, struggles, etc. – existed before the conclusion of the life. The “we are” slice of the sentence implies two additional variables: the universality of involvement – an event that excludes no one […]
The former often refers to architectural structures; the latter, to the exterior or interior paint, color and hue; and, together, they present to the observing eye the sensible objects that we experience through sight, smell and at least as to the former, tactile encounters. Words are funny things; we not only create and apply them, but concurrently establish rules for utility and usage such that restrictions apply, expansiveness beyond certain boundaries become prohibited, and modifications for allowances in the placement of a particular sentence are constrained. […]
Unlike its cousins, it has no valves or pitch-altering devices, but must be modified through the movement of the lips, the extent of breath exhaled and the undulating modifications of combined muscles in the lips, tongue and throat. Perhaps from the days of riding a horse in the cavalry, where playing an instrument while charging full force ahead on a horse stumbling across rough terrain forced the instrument’s player to modulate through strain of keeping one’s self from falling; in any event, its very lack of complexity belies the simplicity of the bugle, as appearances are indeed deceiving. […]
Between each word; separating being from nothingness; that which allows for something is contingent upon the void that distinguishes, and without the lack there can be no substance. Time doesn’t exist without space for movement of bodies of mass; such stillness echoes the lack of reverberating sounds, where waves bounce from one object to the next, and where Oneness of universe means that the clock no longer matters. Of life, we imagine the same: there are interludes, but we tend to skip the pain and sorrow between the covers of hidden privacy. […]
Have you ever observed the child who takes a stick and imagines himself/herself (we are trying to maintain the decorum of political correctness, here, by including all genders, because the implication otherwise in using a reflexive pronoun identifying a specific population apparently denotes that excluding the other half-or-so of the world’s inhabitants is discriminatory and an engagement of possible malfeasance, which we would not want to be charged with) emboldened by a weapon in hand and being the hero of an imaginary battle, […]